1) Dave Hause, “Blood Harmony” / I love a certain class of artist who grew up with Springsteen LPs in one hand and Clash cassettes in the other. Philly songwriter Dave Hause sits near the head of that class, crafting thoughtful—but accessible—folk-rockers with the hint of a blue-collar growl. Hause’s latest is warm and perceptive (and throws in a Gin Blossoms reference on the gently propulsive “Sandy Sheets,” for good measure).
2) La Luz, self-titled / This West Coast band braids garage rock and psychedelic soul in the most pleasing way. The band’s fourth studio effort marries crackling, campfire guitars with floating, smoke-wispy melodies. Each song has its surface delights, but offers so much more to notice and embrace on subsequent listens.
3) Parquet Courts, “Sympathy for Life” / The NYC band returns with another record stocked with jittery delights. Much has been made of the band’s foray—especially late in the record—into more danceable rhythms and textures. Those moments prove interesting, but give me the signature elements of Parquet Courts’ sound (sharp-edged guitars, sweeping and sardonic choruses, hand-in-glove rhythms), and anything and everything else is just icing.
4) Meg Conley, “Get to Work, Children” / I place implicit trust in certain writers to tell me the truth each and every time they touch the page. Meg Conley is one of those writers. Here, in a typically good and necessary piece, Conley discerns and divines the effects of work (their family’s and their own) on young people; she tells sober-minded truths in a way that sticks.
“When opportunities are only frictionless for kids from families with money, those kids are the only ones who get opportunity,” she writes. “The kids who get the opportunity are overwhelmingly white and middle to upper-class. This isn't a problem of work. It's a problem of systemic inequality.”
Subscribe to Meg’s work at https://www.megconley.com/.
5) Annie Zaleski, “R.E.M.’s eclectic, road-created New Adventures In Hi-Fi sounds more resonant than ever” for The A.V. Club / Zaleski is one of our day’s most perceptive music writers and here, on the occasion of a packed reissue, she holds forth on what … might … be … my favorite R.E.M. record (!). Zaleski captures what I love about “New Adventures in Hi-Fi” and, as is her style, grounds the record in a wealth of context. In one passage, she writes:
“… New Adventures In Hi-Fi is a farewell written without the burden of an ending. The album doesn’t dwell on the past; it just processes how humans move forward, and embrace what’s next as major life changes are occurring.”